Monday, June 7, 2010

Like most doctors, I get boatloads of job offers. Tons. Every freaking day in the mail.

"Great Opportunity! Live in scenic Nofuckingwhere! Incredible Salary!". And they always have pictures of stunningly attractive men and women, with amazingly cute children, doing outdoor activities. Or attending the theater. Or doing anything but wading through a huge pile of charts with a lobby full of patients. They make the jobs sound so wonderful that you wonder why the previous doc left.

These things have all sorts of catchphrases about remarkable salary, fast-track to partnership, limited call, great public schools, outdoor activities, cultural events, etc. Usually it runs something like this: "Practice in a beautiful area, where so you can live 5 minutes from the beach, mountains, and international opera house. World class schools in an area with absolutely no crime, drug problems, or pesticides. Enjoy year-round skiing, golf, wind-surfing, fishing, kayaking, and snowboarding. Call schedule is 1 in 365, with no hospital coverage. Earn $175 billion dollars a year and a generous program to help you pay back your med school loans, with a fast-track to partnership."

So, as a courtesy to other medical professionals, I've waded through these things and collected the most commonly used phrases, and now offer a translation:

"World Class Medicine": (which world? Neptune?)

"Directorship position": You're the only doc for 500 miles.

"Practice without limits": Patients will push the envelope like you wouldn't believe.

"Short drive from recreational opportunities": Not that you'll ever have time to go, but you can drop the kids off on your way to work.

"Theater events": The high school kids put on "Li'l Abner" in the Fall.

"Low Crime rates": Everyone has a gun, and shoots on sight.

"Invigorating river nearby": We're downstream from a sewage plant.

"Unique patients": Inbred families with webbed fingers.

"Fine shopping": We have a Walmart AND a Target!

"Fine local cuisine": Whoppers, Big Macs, AND Wendy's"

"Wholesome community": Minorities kept out at gun point.

"Join a growing practice": You're it.

"Moving bonus": Biff will come help you unload your truck

"University town": ER is full of drunken fratboys.

"Physician-friendly hospital administration": And you can see Bigfoot here, too. Pigs also fly.

"Competitive salary": You'll make more than you would at the local McD's. But not much.

"Generous benefits": Secretary has a bowl of M&M's on her desk.

"Cultural offerings": Office fridge hasn't been cleaned in years.

"Topnotch school system": Most kids finished 8th grade.

And my favorite:

"Year round activities": What does that mean? Hell, cleaning my house is a year round activity.

Translation: show up, get crappiest assignment (because everyone knows travellers are rich!), and work nights in an area where the "stab 'em and slab 'em" (as my friend calls them) occur just as you're leaving for work and when you're done.

And that nursing input part? Just be quiet, show up and leave not one minute over after we dump on you.

Thanks for the laugh! I'm a Physical Therapist and also get those mailings by the truckload. And I enjoy pondering what they really mean myself; if it's so great, why are they spending so much money on recruiting?!

LOL!!! I love these, I grew up/went to school in a very very rural area (Think driving 2.5 hours for the nearest major grocery store/any kind of shopping). You'd be surprised at the amount of Doctors that take up those "Great" offers only to get out of the contract etc as soon as possible.

My thoughts, if you don't want to live in the middle of butt-F*#% no where don't listen to the "Great" offers!

"Short drive from recreational opportunities": This means, to me at least, that there are several "recreational" drug dealers nearby, eager to sell you the latest concoctions from their home meth labs, etc.

I went to one of those state-sponsored art programs the some summer in high school and found out 'beach' did not always mean a body of water of the ocean varity.

The young long islander me was confuzzled when one day, the director of the program announced a trip to the beach. Beach? But, but, that's five hours away. Turns out, in upstate ny, a man-enhanced lake shore with trucked-in sand is a beach.

So that mountain and beach just means a hole in a field with water, and the mound of dirt from the hole digging is the mountain.

I remember going through that sort of mail when I did data entry at my uncle's practice while I was in school. It's like a big game of who can lie the most...and it's nearly impossible to decide who's winning. LOL.

Perfect for the outdoors enthusiast! = Middle of absolutely nowhere. You will be checking for bears between the house and the car. (Alternate version is - Opportunity to practice wilderness medicine! Really. I saw this one last week. Because, y'know, that's just what you want to see... on a psychiatry recruitment flier.)

Family-friendly work environment: Your family is welcome to come down to the clinic and eat dinner with you. We don't mind at all.

I laughed so hard reading this. I read an ad my very small, very rural hometown hospital was trying to use to recruit an ortho surgeon. I never would have guessed what an amazing town I lived in. Funny though, nobody that interviewed ever stayed.

We have a position for a neurologist here in the midcoast region of Maine, in a wholesome community, University town, with year round activities (shoveling snow for at least 7 months, and getting your generator to work for the frequent power outages...), etc. etc.

All the practicing neurologist here needs to do is somehow get his partner to sign papers to release his office and patients and any shared assets...his partner who has locked himself in his home for over 2 years without leaving and without anyone seeing him, including the police who pay welfare calls to his house, after people knock on his doors and windows with no response.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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